This book reflects on how to grow and provide food to the people wherever they live on Earth, backed by the author's own experience in different countries. Written in an autobiographical format, the book serves as a vehicle for voicing concern for the disprivileged. It takes up large issues and draws attention to "orphan crops" and "hidden hunger". Noting that more than one billion of the world's seven billion people go hungry or are malnourished, the book critically examines the political, economic and environmental issues to which contemporary agriculture is closely tied—tariffs and farm subsidies, water pollution, biofuels, the prospects and problems of genetically modified organisms, the growing backlash against mechanized agriculture and increasing support for sustainable practices.

William D. Dar is the first Asian Filipino Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). He has also been a member of the UN Millennium Task Force on Hunger.